October Mission & Parish Council Update

Mission Update – Anglican Youthworks

In November, Mission of the Month giving is devoted to Anglican Youthworks. It’s the 20th anniversary of Youthworks being established by the amalgamation of previous agencies.

In that time, SRE curriculum and teacher accreditation has been massively upgraded, new conference and camping sites have been added, and the Year 13 program, Ferv.net website and Timothy Partnership (for online theological study) were introduced. Youthworks College – for training children’s and youth ministers – was established (by Reg and Dorothy’s son-in-law, Graham Stanton) and has now moved to co-locate with Moore College at Newtown.

There have been over 3000+ SRE teachers trained, 500,000+ students taught SRE by Anglican accredited teachers, and 400,000+ kids attend Christian outdoor education camps through Youthworks. 292 students have graduated from Youthworks College and 702 have completed the Year 13 gap year, including several from St Michael’s or who have come to St Michael’s afterwards, and who bless us by their presence today.

We’re thankful for the education Josh Hayward has received from Youthworks, as he comes to the end of this third and final traineeship year. We look forward to the possibility of new youth traineeships here.

We pray for more volunteers to train and deploy as SRE teachers. And we encourage high school kids to attend the LiT (Leaders in Training) camps. Dozens and dozens of our senior high kids have benefitted and gone on into junior leadership and beyond.

Parish Council Update – October

As always, we start with a member’s Bible reading from Matthew 20 and prayer.

We received a report from Stacey Chapman on ministry among and by women.

We noted the service times proposed by the Minister for Christmas-New Year period: